Study: Despite problems, gambling pays off for Indiana

March 06, 2006

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) Â? Indiana's casinos are to blame for about $1 million in crime each week, but the 10 riverboats raised $763 million in net revenue for the state during the fiscal year that ended in June.

Lawmakers on Tuesday were expected to officially release those findings, part of a seven-month assessment of Indiana's gambling industry by Indianapolis-based consultant Policy Analytics LLC, The Indianapolis Star reported Monday.

The study, designed to present a neutral view of gambling in the state, supported what many industry officials have been saying for years Â? that casinos' costs, including bankruptcies and poor mental health, are significant but overshadowed by the revenue they bring.

Indiana had the fourth-highest casino revenue in fiscal year 2005, ranking behind Nevada, New Jersey and Mississippi.

"We need to have a discussion based on data and the social significance of that data," said Rep. Ralph Ayres, R-Chesterton. "Considering the time constraints, I think it was a good study."

The report already has been criticized.

Mike Smith, executive director of the Casino Association of Indiana, said the report's most controversial conclusion Â? that $52.1 million worth of crime each year is caused by gambling Â? was reached using national data, not state research.

"That's kind of disappointing, because that's not necessarily a reflection on Indiana itself," he said. "That's the problem with trying to use a broad brush using national data, which could in itself be flawed."

Rep. Peggy Welch, D-Bloomington, said the study's short time frame could make the results inconclusive.

"When you start talking to churches, to the counseling groups and to the banks, what does it really mean to the community?" she said.

Casinos have created an additional 6,178 problem gamblers and 12,356 pathological gamblers in Indiana. The closer Indiana residents live to a casino, the more likely they are to have a gambling problem, the study said.

About 8 percent of crime in casino counties and 1.4 percent of Indiana bankruptcies are attributed to the riverboats, the study found.

"That's an awful lot of people to be afflicted by the disease of compulsive gambling," said John Wolf, the founder and former coordinator of the Indiana Coalition Against Legalized Gambling. "Wouldn't you call that an epidemic?"